Archive for March, 2016

Most organizations have posted privacy notices on their websites. Great, right? Well consider that a 2012 study showed that the average reader would need 25 days simply to read the privacy policies for all websites accessed in a year. Website privacy notices are often very poorly written. And that’s not the only problem, as I’ve discovered over the past couple of decades reviewing privacy notices. In the past year in the privacy impact assessments (PIAs) I’ve done, I’ve found two consistent problems with them all.(more…)

There are fascinating and potentially very helpful smart gadgets being introduced every day into the consumer market. Particularly to create “smart homes” that will make refrigerators, lights, doors, and anything else that can be connected online (so basically anything) Wi-Fi enabled so that you can control, check on, record, and lock them, just to name just a few of the possibilities, from anywhere with a handy dandy app or mobile device.(more…)

Note: This was written in early January for part of International Data Privacy Day and Iowa Data Privacy Day activities. It is just now being published due to some unforeseen delays.

Do you have any type of wearable health device, like a fitness tracker? Or maybe an implanted or attached medical device, like an insulin pump or pacemaker? If they connect with apps or other computers through wireless connections, they are most likely collecting and sending huge amounts of data. Have you considered all that data, and how it is secured and who is getting it?(more…)